At present, with the unceasing development of wireless networks and mobile terminals, users can acquire the information they need from servers at any time and in any place.
Currently, a common technique for transmitting information from a server to a client device is the following: when a client device receives an information acquisition command from a user or a computer program, it sends an information acquisition request to a server. The server determines the information that the client device requested and sends a fixed quantity of the information that the client device requested back to the client device. When the client device receives another information acquisition command (e.g., a next-page command), it sends another information acquisition request to the server and the server sends another fixed quantity of the information that the client device requested back to the client device.
For example, assume that the fixed quantity is ten pieces of information and that the service end determines that the client device requested 100 pieces of information. In this example scenario, the service end sends the first ten pieces of these 100 pieces of information back to the client device for display. FIG. 1 shows an example of a display at a client device. The display shows the seven pieces of the first ten pieces of requested information that were returned by the service end. Each piece of information is associated with the label “Row” and a corresponding number from “4” through “10.” After browsing these ten pieces of information, a user using the client device may wish to browse subsequent information. The user may then select the “Load More” button shown in the example of FIG. 1 to submit a next-page command. In another example, the user may submit a next-page command by sliding the screen up to the last piece of information (“Row 10” as shown in FIG. 1).
After the client device receives the next-page command, it sends an information acquisition request to the server. In response, the server sends back the 11th to 20th pieces of information from the aforementioned 100 pieces of information to the client device for display.
However, in an actual application, each reader's reading speed will differ. As such, sending a fixed quantity of information to each user may fail to satisfy each user's individual needs. In addition, in the case of users who read more quickly, such users will finish browsing the fixed quantity of information sent back by the server quickly each time and will request to browse another fixed quantity of information. If, during a peak time period for information browsing, there are relatively many fast-reading users requesting additional information with their client devices, the server will be inundated with requests. A great volume of requests may lead to degradation on the server.